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Red Hat, Inc. and Netraverse, producers of Win4Lin have announced a partnership in which Red Hat will provide support to Netraverse's modifications of the Linux kernel.

Netraverse's Win4Lin allows Windows applications to run on Linux machines. The product is available as either a desktop or server addition. Unlike VMWare, which uses kernel modules and virtual hardware to run Windows software, Win4Lin requires a modified Linux kernel to operate.

"Linux grew 24% to hold 27% share of the server operating environment market shipments in IDC's preliminary findings for 2000," said Dan Kusnetzky, IDC's VP of system software research. "Linux, on the other hand, held under 2% share of the client operating environment market shipments that same year. It is clear that the availability of the most popular desktop or client applications is an important factor holding back the acceptance of Linux. Since many of the most popular applications are only available on Microsoft's Windows family of operating environments today, a product making these Windows applications run reliably and perform well on Linux would go a long way towards removing this impediment."